The Relationship between Fertility and Female Participation in the Labour Force in OECD Countries 2000–2020: It Is (Again) Negative

Miloš Milovanović

doi:10.2478/ceej-2023-0015

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The Relationship between Fertility and Female Participation in the Labour Force in OECD Countries 2000–2020: It Is (Again) Negative

Central European Economic Journal

Volume 10 (2023): Issue 57 (January 2023)

By: Miloš Milovanović

Open Access

|Oct 2023

Figures & Tables

Female labour force participation rates by OECD member countries, 2000–2020

Total fertility rates by OECD member countries, 2000–2020

Table 1.

Summary statistics

Variable	Observations	Mean	Standard Deviation	Minimum	Maximum
TFR	693	1.62	0.34	0.86	3.11
FLFP	693	67.45	7.42	46.3	84.01
Mean age at birth	693	30	1.18	26.60	33.2
Gender wage gap	693	15.04	7.6	0.38	41.65
Share of women (ages 25–64) with tertiary education	652	33.91	11.77	9.06	66.45
Public expenditure on family in cash as % of GDP	693	20.42	5.02	4.41	32.03
Public expenditure on family in-kind as % of GDP	693	62	8.7	38.90	84.08
Part-time employment rate	672	23.84	12.87	2.32	61.14

[i] Notes: The sample has 714 (672 for part-time employment since data for the USA are missing, and 652 for education since the data for some years were not available) observations. The data are drawn from the OECD database files.

[ii] Abbreviations: S.D. = standard deviation; Min – minimum; Max = maximum; GDP, gross domestic product

Table 2.

Fixed effects (FE) with TFR as the dependent variable

Effect	Coef.	SE	p
Total Fertility Rate (t–1)***	0.917	0.018	0.001
Female Labour force participation	–0.0001	0.001	0.893
Expenditure on family in cash**	0.026	0.011	0.02
Mean Age at Birth***	0.029	0.007	0.001
Gender Wage Gap**	0.002	0.0008	0.01
Expenditure on family in-kind**	–0.05	0.018	0.006
Share of women (25–64) with tertiary education***	–0.002	0.0007	0.001
Female Part-Time Employment	0.0007	0.001	0.484

[i] Notes: significance at < 0.05** and <0.001***, Number of observation=587; F(9,32) = 396.62; Number of groups= 31; Observations per group= 18.9; Prob> F = 0.0000; R-sq: within = 0.8527, between =0.2139, overall =0.0407; rho | 0.97102756

[ii] Abbreviations: SE, standard error

Table 3.

Linear random intercept model (maximum likelihood) with TFR as the dependent variable

	Between-Country Effect			Within-Country Effect			Absolute Difference (Within-Between)
	Coef.	SE	p	Coef.	SE	p	Coef.	SE	p
Total Fertility Rate (t–1)	–	–	–	0.92	0.018	0.001	–	–	–
Female Labour Force Participation Rate	0.008	0.004	0.05	−0.0001	0.001	0.87	0.005	0.004	0.190
Expenditure on family in cash	0.08	0.053	0.12	0.026	0.011	0.02	0.072	0.047	0.120
Mean Age at Birth	−0.009	0.04	0.82	0.028	0.007	0.001	−0.037	0.033	0.260
Gender Wage Gap	−0.001	0.004	0.70	0.002	0.0008	0.01	−0.007	0.003	0.047
Expenditure on family in-kind	0.204	0.084	0.01	−0.051	0.018	0.005	0.208	0.056	0.001
Female Part-Time Employment Rate	0.002	0.003	0.34	0.0007	0.001	0.48	0.003	0.002	0.102
TFR in 2000	0.289	0.129	0.02	–	–	–	–	–	–
Share of women (25–64) with tertiary education	0.003	0.003	0.20	−0.002	0.0007	0.001	0.008	0.002	0.003
Regions
“Old” Europe	0.010	0.075	0.89	–	–	–	–	–	–
Former Socialist block	0.058	0.123	0.64	–	–	–	–	–	–
Scandinavian	−0.097	0.126	0.44	–	–	–	–	–	–
Mediterranean	0.088	0.122	0.47	–	–	–	–	–	–
Observations	587
p (Level-2 Error / Total Error)	0.70
Rho	0.8652498
LR Test (H0: Level-2 Error=0)	960.95, p=<.001

Correlation between TFR and FLFP for Italy and Sweden, 2000–2020

Table 4.

Estimated country level residual (u_ij), their associated standard errors, (u_ijse) and ranking

id	u₀	u_0se	u₀rank	country
12	0.3136998	0.021553	1	ISL
8	0.3063421	0.019987	2	FRA
3	0.230887	0.019987	3	BEL
13	0.146161	0.019987	4	IRL
33	0.1302929	0.022163	5	LTU
1	0.1065629	0.019987	5	AUS
14	0.0802455	0.019987	6	ITA
4	0.0779239	0.019987	7	CAN
10	0.0641127	0.019987	8	GRC
25	0.0615938	0.019987	9	SWE
32	0.0523875	0.019987	10	LVA
27	0.0509602	0.019987	11	GBR
24	0.050717	0.019987	12	ESP
11	0.0450133	0.019987	13	HUN
19	0.0381806	0.033967	14	NZL
31	0.0365195	0.02047	15	SVN
5	–0.0034718	0.019987	16	CZE
15	–0.0157073	0.019987	17	JPN
18	–0.0212104	0.019987	18	NLD
29	–0.0649783	0.019987	19	EST
6	–0.0719666	0.019987	20	DNK
23	–0.0905423	0.019987	21	SVK
9	–0.0953914	0.019987	22	GER
21	–0.1052208	0.019987	23	POL
20	–0.1343703	0.022829	24	NOR
7	–0.1689568	0.020991	25	FIN
17	–0.1751024	0.022163	26	LUX
2	–0.1796078	0.022163	27	AUT
22	–0.1950752	0.019987	28	PRT
16	–0.2069601	0.019987	29	KOR
26	–0.2630384	0.019987	30	SWI
28	–	–	32	USA

[i] The US is omitted from the table due to the missing values for both part-time work and the share of women (aged 25–64) with tertiary education

Table 5.

Correlation between TFR and between/within-country effect of FLFP for the 2000–2010 and 2011–2020 periods separately

2000–2010
	Coef.	SE	p
FLFP between	0.019	0.005	0.001
FLFP within	0.0162	0.002	0.001
2011–2020
	Coef.	SE	p
FLFP between	0.016	0.003	0.001
FLFP within	–0.007	0.003	0.022

[i] Abbreviations: TFR, total fertility rate; FLFP, female labour force participation

Total fertility rates in the selected countries, 2000–2020

Table 6.

The effect of the 2008 global financial crisis

	Coef.	SE	p
The global financial crises	–0.026	0.007	0.001
The trend in TFR before GFC	0.007	0.001	0.001
The trend in TFR after GFC	–0.012	0.001	0.001

[i] Abbreviations: TFR, total fertility rate; GFC, global financial crisis

Cross-sectional and time-series association between total fertility rate and female labour force participation Source: Author's calculation based on OECD (2022)

Table 7.

Comparison of estimates between models

Statistical models	Fixed Effects				Linear random intercept
Variables	Coef.	SE	p	Between/within	Coef.	SE	p
TFR(t–1)	0.917	0.018	0.001	TFR (t–1)	0.92	0.018	0.001
FLFP	–0.0001	0.001	0.89	FLFP_bw	0.008	0.004	0.05
FLFP	–0.0001	0.001	0.89	FLFP_wi	–0.0001	0.001	0.87
Share of women (aged 25–64) with tertiary education	–0.002	0.0007	0.001	Share with tertiary_bw	0.003	0.003	0.20
Share of women (aged 25–64) with tertiary education	–0.002	0.0007	0.001	Share with tertiary_wi	–0.002	0.0007	0.001
Mean age at birth	0.029	0.007	0.001	Mean age at birth_bw	–0.009	0.04	0.82
Mean age at birth	0.029	0.007	0.001	Mean age at birth_wi	0.028	0.007	0.001
Gender wage gap	0.002	0.0008	0.010	Gender wage gap_bw	–0.001	0.004	0.70
Gender wage gap	0.002	0.0008	0.010	Gender wage gap_wi	0.002	0.0008	0.01
Expenditure on family in cash	0.026	0.011	0.02	In cash_bw	0.08	0.053	0.12
Expenditure on family in cash	0.026	0.011	0.02	In cash_wi	0.026	0.011	0.02
Expenditure on family in-kind	–0.05	0.018	0.006	In-kind_bw	0.204	0.084	0.01
Expenditure on family in-kind	–0.05	0.018	0.006	In-kind_wi	–0.051	0.018	0.005
Female part-time employment rate	0.0007	0.001	0.484	Part-time_bw	0.002	0.003	0.34
Female part-time employment rate	0.0007	0.001	0.484	Part-time_wi	0.0007	0.001	0.48
TFR in 2000	–	–	–	TFR in 2000	0.289	0.129	0.02
“Old” Europe	–	–	–	“Old” Europe	0.010	0.075	0.89
Former Socialist block	–	–	–	Former Socialist block	0.058	0.123	0.64
Scandinavian	–	–	–	Scandinavian	–0.097	0.126	0.44
Mediterranean	–	–	–	Mediterranean	0.088	0.122	0.47
	rho \| 0.97102756				rho \| 0.8652498

Notation	Definitions
TFR	Total fertility rate
FLFP	Female labour force participation
FE	Fixed effects method
OECD	The organization for economic co-operation and development
SE	Standard errors
S.D.	Standard deviations
Min	Minimum
Max	Maximum
GDP	Gross domestic product
ITS	Interrupted time-series analysis
GFC	Global financial crises
HDI	Human development index
AUS	Australia
AUT	Austria
BEL	Belgium
CAN	Canada
CZE	Czech Republic
DEU	Deutschland
DNK	Denmark
ESP	Espana
EST	Estonia
FIN	Finland
FRA	France
GBR	Great Britan
GRC	Grrecce
HUN	Hungary
IRL	Republic of Ireland
ISL	Iceland
ITA	Italy
JPN	Japan
KOR	Republic of Korea
LTU	Lithuania
LUX	Luxemburg
LVA	Latvia
NLD	Netherland
NOR	Norway
NZL	New Zeland
POL	Poland
PRT	Portugal
SVK	Slovakia
SVN	Slovenia
SWE	Sweden
SWI	Switzerland
USA	United States of America

References

Authors

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ceej-2023-0015 | Journal eISSN: 2543-6821 | Journal ISSN: 2544-9001

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Language: English

Page range: 254 - 274

Published on: Oct 8, 2023

Published by: Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

Female labour force participation,

fertility rate,

global financial crisis,

total fertility rates

JEL:

J13,

J21,

C33,

C18

Related subjects:

Business and economics,

Political economics,

Economic theory, systems and structures,

Microeconomics,

Macroeconomics,

Economic policy

© 2023 Miloš Milovanović, published by Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 10 (2023): Issue 57 (January 2023)

The Relationship between Fertility and Female Participation in the Labour Force in OECD Countries 2000–2020: It Is (Again) Negative

Figures & Tables

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Figure 3.

Table 4.

Table 5.

Figure 4.

Table 6.

Figure 5.

Table 7.

Paradigm

My account